It wasn’t exactly where he expected the conversation to go when he sat beside Hillary Clinton.

But Welsh government minister Jeremy Miles found himself being offered to be set up on a blind date by the former US secretary of state, presidential candidate and First Lady.

Sitting beside her at an event at Swansea University, Mr Miles said he thanked her for referring to LGBT rights in a speech she had given, before explaining he was the first gay cabinet minister of a government in Wales.

He said: “She asked me if I had a partner and I was newly single at that point, and she very kindly offered to introduce me to some of her friends.

“Including – I won’t mention his name – but a world leader.

“I did not say yes, I thought that would be a step too far.”

It was a long way from his days as a teenager at Ystalyfera Comprehensive School in the Swansea valleys, where he says he went to bed wishing he would wake up and “not be gay”.

On BBC Radio Wales’s Walescast podcast, the education and Welsh language minister said he struggled with a lack of positive gay role models and that his family “absolutely did not talk about it” at the time.

He said: “I knew that I was different and I wasn’t quite sure what way exactly, but I knew that I was different. And obviously, by the time I became a teenager, I had a much stronger sense that I was gay, but you didn’t see that anywhere, it wasn’t talked about in school at all.

“My family, absolutely did not talk about it. And when I came out to them very much later, that was incredibly painful.”

He added: “There was a long time when I would have given anything not to feel like that. I used to go to bed praying that I would wake up not being gay.

“That has changed now, obviously, thankfully. But that kind of stuff, it leaves its mark. And I do think if I was to look back at my younger life, I think it probably affected my confidence, my sense of what I could achieve, what I should set my mind doing.”

Mr Miles joined the Labour Party at 16, before studying law at New College, Oxford. This led to him playing a surprising role in the early days of the ITV series Downton Abbey.

As a lawyer for the US TV network NBC Universal, he was involved in selling the show, and met a lot of the cast.

Now, as education minister, Mr Miles said his struggles as a teenager have led to his passionate belief in “making school feel inclusive for everybody”.

He reflected on criticism of the Welsh government’s new relationships and sexuality education (RSE) curriculum, which saw a failed judicial review by a group of parents.

“You need to be able to see yourself and your feelings and your place in the world in some way reflected back at you in the life of the school,” Mr Miles said.

He said the Welsh government was currently looking at “guidance to support schools, to support trans young people and the school community more broadly” which he hoped would be published before the end of the year.

Mr Miles said the importance of inclusivity extended to the Welsh government’s universal free school meals policy in Wales – with the aim that all primary school pupils will be able to have them by 2024.

Challenged on the fact that the universal provision has meant the Welsh government cannot provide funding for free school meals during the summer holidays, Mr Miles said the universal aspect was important.

He said: “One of the key rationales for the universal provision is the removal of stigma. So it’s hard, I think, for anybody to appreciate just how alienating it will feel to be separately identified as someone having free school meals.

“We have previously been able to provide free school meals during holidays. It’s at this point that we’ve got a situation where the budget no longer allows that.”

Looking ahead to the next general election, which has to be held before the end of January 2025, Mr Miles said “the best possible outcome” in his mind was a Labour government at Westminster and a Welsh Labour government because of “investment in public services”.

“That’s the way we can make real progress on some of the thornier challenges that have been more difficult to address,” said Mr Miles.

He said unless the government in Westminster “is prepared to respect the principles of devolution, then it’s a fragile settlement”.

He added: “We have to have a system which respects that we have a four nation arrangement in the kingdom. And that, you know, I would say, I think most people in Wales, actually, what we want is a strengthened Welsh voice within that, and, you know, a fairer distribution of power across the UK.”

But when pressed whether his next career move would be as a candidate to be first minister when Mark Drakeford stands down, he refused to be drawn.

“I very much hope that when that time comes there is a discussion around ideas and vision, not just the kind of runners and riders,” Miles said. “But that’s a discussion I think for another day.”

You can watch the interview on Walescast at 22:40 BST on Wednesday 9 August on BBC One Wales, on iPlayer, or listen on BBC Sounds.